Page:Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London, Volume 1 (2nd edition).djvu/255

Rh The Beloches seem generally to' take the law into their own hands, and to act on the simple principle of retaliation. The Ameers only interfere when the disputes assume a serious character, or extend to whole tribes.

The exports from Sinde or home produce are saltpetre, salt, rice, cotton, ghee oil, oil seed, sharks' fins, bark for tanning, alkali, calico, and felts; and from the kingdoms and provinces to the northward they bring, chiefly for exportation, assafœtida, saffron, horses, leather, hides, madder, musk, alum, drugs of various kinds, Cashmere shawls, dried fruit, diamonds, lapis lazuli, turquoises, and other precious stones, bdellium, and gums. The imports from India are iron, tin, steel, lead, copper, ivory, tea, sugar, spices of all descriptions, chintz, broad-cloth, glass, china ware, cocoa nuts, indigo, areca nuts, muslin, gold cloth, shields, &c. &c. From Khorosan, Persia, and Arabia, the Sindians have for home consumption swords, silk, carpets, dates, rose-water, conserve, tobacco, coffee, and kullyans. Horses are brought in great numbers annually from Kaboul and Candahar to Cutch and Bombay, where they are bought by agents for the British government; but the Beloche soldiers are not well mounted; and except in the stables of the Ameers, there are no fine horses to be seen. The Ameers also keep an immense number of dogs of good breed. The camels of Sinde, which are so famed throughout the whole of Asia, are reared all along the delta of the Indus. They are the only species of conveyance used in the country; and there can be no doubt that their superiority is to be attributed to the saline nature of their food, which has also been found to ameliorate the breed in other animals.

The manufactures of the country have been very extensive, but are dwindling away. The fanciful taste of the Ameers and courtiers for swords and jewellery affords an occupation to a considerable number of workmen at Hyderabad; but the weavers of calico and loongees are no longer so numerous as they were in former times. At the visit of Nadir Shah it is said that they were at Tattah forty thousand weavers, and artisans of every description, to the number of twenty thousand more, exclusive of bankers, money-changers, shopkeepers, and sellers of grain, who were estimated at sixty thousand. The principal manufactures of Hyderabad are now of various kinds of arms, such as spears, matchlocks, swords, and of embroidered cloths. There must be considerable activity on the Indus, even in the present day, for Burnes says, that above Burma, where it is nearly a mile broad, it was studded with boats, filling its channel from bank to bank.

The Sindian soldiers, or military retainers of the Ameers, are dressed in frocks resembling those of English labourers, of a coarse